Dijon
Country: France · 161,830 inhabitants
Attractions
Wikivoyage
Dijon is the largest city in the eastern French region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. Dijon is best known for its mustard (named after the town), which is no longer produced in its metropolitan area. The main city of Côte-d'Or department is one of the most beautiful cities in France, and its historic buildings and byways were not heavily damaged by bombing in World War II and are largely intact.
Wikipedia
Dijon (UK: , US: ; French: [diʒɔ̃] ; in Burgundian: Digion) is a city in and the prefecture of the Côte-d'Or department and of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in eastern France. As of 2023, the population of the commune was 161,830, making it the most populous commune in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté.
The earliest archaeological finds within the city limits of Dijon date to the Neolithic period. Dijon later became a Roman settlement named Divio, located on the road between Lyon and Paris. The province was home to the Dukes of Burgundy from the early 11th until the late 15th centuries, and Dijon became a place of tremendous wealth and power, one of the great European centres of art, learning, and science.
The city has retained varied architectural styles from many of the main periods of the past millennium, including Capetian, Gothic, and Renaissance. Many still-inhabited townhouses in the city's central district date from the 18th century and earlier. Dijon's architecture is distinguished by, among other things, toits bourguignons (Burgundian polychrome roofs) made of glazed terracotta tiles of various colours arranged in geometric patterns.
Dijon holds an International and Gastronomic Fair every year in the northern-hemisphere autumn. Dijon also hosts every three years the international flower show Florissimo. Dijon has become famous for Dijon mustard, which originated in 1856, when Jean Naigeon of Dijon substituted verjuice, the acidic "green" juice of not-quite-ripe grapes, for vinegar in the traditional mustard recipe. Dijon is a green city with an important tertiary sector, as well as a regional economic centre with a diversified fabric, a traditional food-processing center (Dijon crême de cassis and kir, gingerbread, Lanvin chocolate...) and a renowned pharmaceutical sector.
On 4 July 2015, UNESCO registered the historical centre of the city as a World Heritage site, as one of the components of the "Climats, terroirs of Burgundy" site, because of its historical importance in regulating the system of wine production in Burgundy.